Stereotypes and Dangerous Rituals: A Reflection on the Academic Study of Serpent-Handling
“While Hollywood often takes a critical stance in the name of provocation and artistic freedom, scholars of particular social and cultural groups often find themselves working against the grain of collective assumptions.”
In one melancholic and chilling scene in director Andrew Dominik’s The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007), leading man Brad Pitt’s rendition of the famous American outlaw sits outside his Missouri home.
Religious Studies Opportunities Digest – 1 Mar 2013
Consideration of children in the academic field of Religious Studies is taking root, but Buddhist Studies has yet to take notice. Little Buddhas brings together a wide range of scholarship and expertise to address the question of what role children have played in Buddhist literature, in particular historical contexts, and what role they continue to play in specific Buddhist contexts today.
Religious Studies Opportunities Digest – 15 Feb 2013
We are a group of young researchers inspired personally by Alexander Fol and we research and study at different universities and institutes in different countries: Senior Research Assistant Dr. Kalin Stoev – Centre of Thracology “Prof. Alexander Fol” Sofiа at the BAS Sofia; Ivan Marinov – Doctoral Candidate at the University of Montréal; Dimitar Tsakov – Doctoral candidate at the Freie Universität Berlin;
Religious Studies Opportunities Digest – 8 Feb 2013
I am conducting a survey of scholars of religions on methodological and theoretical resources in the study of religions that originate from outside Western Europe and North America. (Those that do originate from Western Europe and North America are known throughout the world.) Among other things I will use the results of the survey to determine how I might continue the project begun with Religious Studies: A Global View.
Religious Studies Opportunities Digest – 1 Feb 2013
Known for their beautiful textile art, the Kuna of Panama have been scrutinized by anthropologists for decades. Perhaps surprisingly, this scrutiny has overlooked the magnificent Kuna craft of nuchukana–wooden anthropomorphic carvings–which play vital roles in curing and other Kuna rituals. Drawing on long-term fieldwork, Paolo Fortis at last brings to light this crucial cultural facet,
Mormons demographics on the other side of the big puddle
“In Europe, Mormons are new religious movement par excellence – they are new to the area, their numbers are very small, they have no social respectability, their doctrines are considered strange and exotic […], and all of these characteristics place them on the same level as other small groups that are trying to settle in the European area”
A Personal Diary from the American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting, Chicago 2012
” It is truly lovely to have met so many nice people when I arrived at the conference knowing virtually no one. My planned early night is yet again railroaded by the “couple” of “quick” emails I had to send, and I crawl into bed just before midnight. Despite the exhaustion, it is difficult to sleep on account of the whirring mind induced by the weekend’s conversations.”
An Astrology (and Spiritualities) for the Modern
“Campion’s suggestion of Theosophical astrology being an astrology for the modern, in the context of a revision of the Enlightenment and ‘modernity’, sheds light on the place of alternative, holistic, and esoteric spiritualities in the modern world.”
[Theosophical astrology] is an astrology of modernity’, suggests Nick Campion in his interview with the Religious Studies Project. However, before even coming to this suggestion,
Religious Studies Opportunities Digest – 9 November 2012
Asian Literature and Translation (ALT) is an open access, peer-reviewed, online journal established by the Centre for the History of Religion in Asia (CHRA), Cardiff University. The main objective of the journal is to publish research papers, translations, and reviews in the field of Asian religious literature (construed in the widest sense) in a form that makes them quickly and easily accessible to the international academic community, to professionals in related fields, such as theatre and storytelling, and to the general public.
Ethics on the Internet: Public versus Private, is it that simple?
In this week’s podcast about religion and digital media, Tim Hutchings and Jonathan Tuckett discuss various areas of current research into religion and digital media, such as use of online forums, creation of prayer groups and pages, and also the use of virtual worlds like Second Life in people’s religiosity, and the ability to construct churches and temples in such settings.
Religious Studies Opportunities Digest – 28 September 2012
This conference will convene in the shadows of the slave castles to examine church responses to contemporary threats to black social, physical, and religious well-being, including political oppression or coercion; group conflict; co-optation of religious life; captivities of persons (e.g., modern slavery, human trafficking, mass incarceration); and economic distortions and dependencies.
Ends and Beginnings: A Reflection on the 2012 EASR Conference
“If I had to choose I would say my favourite thing about these conferences was seeing young and vibrant postgraduate students presenting their craft. I was continuously impressed and excited by the high quality scholarship, ideas, and conversations presented and stimulated by my peers.”
To open the 2012 conference for the European Association for the Study of Religions (in conjunction with the International Association for the History of Religion)…
Religious Studies Opportunities Digest – 14 September 2012 Edition
There are more secular people in the world than ever before. And various forms and manifestations of secularity—atheism, agnosticism, humanism, skepticism, and anti-religious movements—are enjoying increased attention and scrutiny. The scholarly examination of secular identity, secular groups, secular culture(s), and political/constitutional secularisms—and how these all relate to each other,
Religious Studies Opportunities Digest (13 July Edition)
The International Journal for History, Culture and Modernity (HCM) is a new peer-reviewed open access journal that offers a forum for interdisciplinary scholarship in the domain of the humanities. The aim of the journal is to stimulate research and a lively academic
exchange in the field of the cultural history of modernity worldwide. HCM is published by Amsterdam University Press.
Nuancing the Qual-Quan Divide: The Vitality of Research Methods in the Academic Study of Religion
By using “vitality” in the title above, I mean to point to two aspects of the same urgent call. First, I simply mean that research methods are vital to the academic study of religion. As Stausberg and Engler suggest, “it is through methods that data and theory speak to each other and become part of a shared horizon” (2011: 11), and indeed it is still not a platitude to recall that theory, method and data can be considered three sides of that triangle we conjure, whether implicitly or explicitly,